Page 132 of Obsession

"No thank you?"

I jerk my arm out of his hold. Only because he lets me, I know, which makes me even more irate.

His mouth sets, and he follows me as I walk to the bedroom door. “Don’t throw a fit. Yes, I had your mind messed with. But do you see now, the indignity of what you did to me?”

Indignity. He wanted to show me indignity. The thought makes me manic enough to laugh. Because he’s right; my dignity was violated. And I violated his. I did it to him; he did it to me.

Fair’s fair, right?

I come to a stop a foot from the door and shut my eyes, more tears streaming down my face. I don’t even know how long he kept me like that—long enough that my wrist and back are healed—but memories rush through me: how we held one another, the things I whispered, how I obsessed and clung to every crumb he offered.

I am beyond humiliated. I feel deranged and slightly insane.

Shuddering, I wrap my thin robe around me tightly. It was falling off of me just a minute ago, as I was practically begging him to…

I feel him behind me; his presence is a tangible thing, our bodies so familiar with one another. What was a comfort just seconds ago has been replaced by pure loathing.

More memories. I ached for him like air. I lusted for him like I’d die if he didn’t touch me. He paraded me in front of his followers. He made me an accessory to him, nothing more than another jewel in his crown.

He went too far.

Just as I went too far, my traitorous mind reminds me. You did it first. You started this cycle of too far.

What a perfect word for it: cycle. A cycle of love and hate, trickery and deception. Indignity and violation. Of, what have we become, and what will we do to each other?

My conversation with Sem strikes. She was right; it makes sense now. Everything rushes through me with cool clarity, and there is no mistaking what she told me… how she admitted to making me. Aris was telling the truth about that. My shoulders shudder at the thought.

This is a game that I was literally created for. I was created to play with him, a designer toy for a temperamental dog.

She made me to participate in this sick cycle with Aris, where he and I take each other farther and farther. And so we will. We will continue to go too far with one another until… Until what?

The end is unfathomable.

Ouroboros.

“Mary.”

He wants my attention, but I can’t bear to look at him, tortured by our past and the inevitable future. I don’t want to see his face. I don’t want to see his eyes and read the resigned understanding there—or worse, what if he is smiling?

Certainly, he has the better end of this. I am here, I exist, for him.

He is the mouth. The leader. The one who eats. And I am the tail. I am the one being eaten.

But, then it comes to me, in a sudden rush.

Sem’s face flashes. Her smile, her lilac eyes. “Bite,” she’d said.

Bite. Bite down.

I am the mouth. I have the teeth, and I choose.

Ouroboros.

It makes sense now, the choice she said I had to make. There it is: Stay with him, or let go. Sem was telling me to stay, to bite down and remain.

The realization is staggering, and my immediate reaction is no. No, I can’t do that. Even if it saves the world, even if it saves every world, I don’t know if I can do it anymore.

What he just did… What I did to him… How could I be expected to subject myself to that indefinitely?

---